On the ground, alumnus reports on Ukraine revolution

Vio­lent protests, polit­ical upheaval, and Russian involve­ment have thrust Ukraine into the inter­na­tional spot­light, and North­eastern alumnus and jour­nalist Dan Peleschuk has been sharing the story with the world from the conflict’s epicenter.

Peleschuk, AS’09, is a Moscow-​​based senior cor­re­spon­dent with the Global Post, an online U.S. news orga­ni­za­tion that has dis­patched him to report from Kiev on three occa­sions since December. His on-​​the-​​ground reporting has pro­duced news arti­cles on pro­tes­tors’ seizing con­trol of the cap­ital as well as memo­rial ser­vices held for those killed in clashes between anti-​​government pro­tes­tors and police forces last month.

Dan Peleschuk, AS’09

“I think the most strik­ingly unex­pected thing for me was expe­ri­encing the fallout of the clashes,” Peleschuk said of the funerals. “I haven’t expe­ri­enced any moment as pow­erful, sad­dening, and in some ways empow­ering for the Ukrainians as they hon­ored those ‘fallen heroes’ as they called them.”

Protests in Ukraine began in November when now ousted Pres­i­dent Viktor Yanukovych aban­doned signing an asso­ci­a­tion agree­ment with the Euro­pean Union in favor of seeking closer eco­nomic coop­er­a­tion with Russia. Since then, protests and police response have esca­lated and turned deadly for the first time in Jan­uary. Vio­lence con­tinued in Feb­ruary, leaving at least 80 people dead and more than 1,000 injured. Yanukovych was ousted on Feb. 23 and an elec­tion is sched­uled for May.

Russia’s involve­ment with the unrest height­ened over the weekend. Despite warn­ings from U.S. Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and Euro­pean leaders, Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin sent troops to the Crimean Penin­sula to pro­tect its inter­ests and loy­al­ists living there. According to reports on Monday, Ukrainian offi­cials claimed Russia had issued ulti­ma­tums to Ukrainian forces in Crimea to sur­render. In a state­ment on Monday, Obama said Russia is on “the wrong side of history.“According to reports, Putin on Tuesday said Russia reserved the right to use force as a “last resort” and described the crisis in Ukraine as resulting from an “uncon­sti­tu­tional coup.”

Mitchell Oren­stein, pro­fessor and chair of Northeastern’s Depart­ment of Polit­ical Sci­ence, said this esca­lating sit­u­a­tion has the poten­tial to begin a new Cold War between Russia and the West.

“This is the most serious secu­rity sit­u­a­tion to develop in Europe since the end of the Cold War,” Oren­stein said, “and basi­cally the same poli­cies from that time, more or less an iso­la­tion of Russia, are going to be pursued.”

Peleschuk, for his part, has reported pri­marily from Kiev’s Inde­pen­dence Square, the cen­tral loca­tion of the demon­stra­tions. He said pro­tes­tors there con­tin­u­ously expressed their enthu­si­astic defi­ance against Yanukovych’s gov­ern­ment and Russian influence.

“There is this enduring sense of defi­ance, which is in some ways part of the Ukrainian char­acter,” Peleschuk said, “and recently emo­tions have stirred from defi­ance to deter­mi­na­tion. Pro­tes­tors are saying, ‘We are going to see this through, we have sac­ri­ficed a lot, and there is no turning back now.’”

Peleschuk is quite familiar with this corner of the world. He trav­eled there in the sum­mers as an under­grad­uate at North­eastern and while attending grad­uate school in Toronto. He also has a per­sonal con­nec­tion to this region; his grand­par­ents emi­grated from Ukraine during World War II, and his family his­tory has taught him a great deal about the country’s culture.

“Jour­nalism was some­thing that inter­ested me when I started uni­ver­sity and was the per­fect way to explore the region I’m familiar with cul­tur­ally more in depth,” Peleschuk explained.

He said his jour­nalism pro­fes­sors and fellow class­mates at North­eastern greatly influ­enced his mat­u­ra­tion as a jour­nalist, but when it comes to cov­ering a rev­o­lu­tion there are some things one can’t learn in a classroom.

“It is a trial by fire,” Peleschuk said. “Nothing can really pre­pare you for it besides keeping an open mind, a sense of pro­fes­sion­alism, and knowing how much work you have to do. It can get very stressful phys­i­cally and mentally.”

About the Writer

Joe O'Connell is a staff writer for News@Northeastern. A former newspaper reporter and editor, Joe came to Northeastern after working for three different daily newspapers in Massachusetts. Joe is a UNH grad and is finding it difficult to pick which hockey team to cheer for. When he isn't working, Joe can be found watching Boston's sports teams in their athletic endeavors, playing golf badly, and washing hospital scrubs. Follow him on Twitter @joconnell_nu

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